As we reported in our last program, the national election of
eighteen fifty-six put a new man into the White House: James
Buchanan of Pennsylvania. He defeated John Fremont, the candidate of
the new Republican Party, which was opposed to slavery.

Most of the new president's closest friends were southerners.
Buchanan had often supported the south in the dispute over slavery.
He wrote that the north was too aggressive toward the south and
should stop interfering with slavery in the slave states.

Buchanan said that the south had good reason to leave the Union
if Abolitionists kept up their attacks against slavery.

VOICE TWO:

President
James Buchanan

As the new president, Buchanan
believed he could solve the slave question by keeping the
Abolitionists quiet. Success would mean the end of the anti-slavery
Republican Party.

In choosing his cabinet, Buchanan wanted men who shared the same
ideas and interests. President Pierce had tried to unite the
different groups in the party by giving each a representative in his
cabinet. This had not worked. It had driven the different party
groups farther apart.

Buchanan had served in President Polk's cabinet. He remembered
how well its members worked together. He said it was the unity of
this cabinet that made Polk's administration so successful.

VOICE ONE:

Buchanan gave the job of Secretary of State to Lewis Cass of
Michigan. Cass was seventy-five years old. His mind had lost its
sharpness. This did not worry Buchanan, because he had planned to be
his own foreign minister.

The job of Treasury Secretary went to Howell Cobb, a southern
moderate from Georgia. Southerners also were named as Secretary of
War, Interior Secretary, and Postmaster General.

Isaac Toucey of Connecticut was given the job of Navy Secretary.
Toucey was a northerner. But he supported many policies of the
south. Another northerner -- Jeremiah Black of Pennsylvania --
became Attorney General.

In forming his cabinet, Buchanan did not ask for advice from
Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois. Douglas was the party's leader
in the Senate and the most powerful Democrat in the northwest.

Douglas believed that the northwest should have two
representatives in the cabinet. He said Cass could be one of them.
But Douglas wanted one of his own supporters to be the other.
Buchanan refused what Douglas wanted. And he gave the
administration's support to a political enemy of Douglas.

VOICE TWO:

James Buchanan was sworn-in as president on March fourth,
eighteen fifty-seven. In his inaugural speech, the new president
denounced the long dispute over slavery. He said he hoped it would
end soon.

Buchanan said the dispute could be settled easily by doing two
things: by ending interference with slavery in states where it was
legal. And by letting the people of a territory decide if they
wanted slavery.

Buchanan said he expected the Supreme Court to rule soon on the
right of the people of a territory to decide this. He said he was
sure that all good citizens -- north and south -- would accept the
high court's ruling.

VOICE ONE:

At the time he said this, Buchanan already knew what the court's
decision would be. He had even used his influence to help one member
of the court to decide. The decision was made in the case of Dred
Scott, a negro slave.

Scott was sold in Missouri to an army doctor who took him to
Illinois and then went into the Wisconsin territory. Scott lived in
these two places for almost four years before he was returned to
Missouri.

Scott asked a court in Missouri to give him his freedom. He
claimed that living in Illinois and Wisconsin -- where slavery was
illegal -- had made him a free man.

VOICE TWO:

The court agreed with Scott and gave him his freedom. But the
decision was appealed, and the Supreme Court of Missouri ruled
against him. Scott then took his case to a federal court. Finally,
he asked the United States Supreme Court to decide if he was a slave
or a free man.

The Supreme Court took up the case in December,
eighteen-fifty-six. The judges studied it carefully because it
raised serious constitutional questions.

Scott claimed he was free because he had lived in free territory.
It was free because Congress -- in the Missouri compromise of
eighteen twenty made slavery illegal in that area. Scott's owner
raised the questions: Did Congress have the Constitutional power to
close a territory to slavery? Was the Missouri Compromise legal?

VOICE ONE:

At first, most of the nine Supreme Court judges had planned to
give a decision without answering this question. They did not want
to involve the court in this bitter dispute. The majority decided
that a negro was not a citizen. Therefore, they said, Dred Scott had
no right to ask the court to hear his case.

In this way, the case could be settled without deciding on the
power of Congress to act on slavery in the territories.

But two of the nine Supreme Court judges opposed this ruling.
Both were from the north. They had said they would write a minority
decision. They said their decision would include a statement that
Congress did have power over slavery in the territories.

VOICE TWO:

Since two members of the court had planned to offer views on this
question, the other seven decided the majority also should do so.

Of the seven, five were from the south. They did not believe
Congress had any power over territorial slavery. The remaining two
judges -- both from the north -- did not want to make what they felt
would be a political decision.

One southern member of the Supreme Court was James Catron, a good
friend of James Buchanan. Buchanan had written to him asking when
the court would act on the Dred Scott case.

VOICE ONE:

Catron had answered that the court would rule soon. Then he asked
for Buchanan's help in getting one of the northern members of the
court to vote with the five from the south. He told the president
that the country would more easily accept the court's ruling if one
of the northern judges gave his support. Catron proposed that
Buchanan write to Justice Robert Grier of Pennsylvania.

So Buchanan wrote to Grier. He told him that a strong decision in
the Dred Scott case might do much to bring peace to the country.
Grier agreed. He said he would vote with the five southerners. They
would rule that the Constitution did not give Congress power over
slavery in the territories.

All this had happened in the few weeks before Buchanan became
president.

VOICE TWO:

The Supreme Court finally announced its decision just two days
after Buchanan moved into the White House. Chief Justice Roger Taney
read the decision in the small courtroom in the Capitol building.

The room was crowded with congressmen, senators, government
officials, and newspapermen. Chief Justice Taney began reading the
decision at eleven o'clock. He read for more than two and a half
hours.

He said the high court rejected Scott's claim of freedom for
three reasons. First, Scott was not a citizen. Taney said the
Constitution gave the right of citizenship only to members of the
white race. Because he was not a citizen, he had no right to ask the
court to hear his case.

Secondly, Taney said Scott was ruled by the laws of Missouri, the
state in which he lived. Missouri laws did not give freedom to
slaves who lived temporarily in free territory. Therefore, said
Taney, Scott was still a slave.

VOICE ONE:

Then the Chief Justice took up the question of the free territory
in which Scott had lived. It had become free territory under the
Missouri Compromise. This was the law that Congress passed in
eighteen twenty. This law kept slavery out of the northern part of
the territory which the United States bought from France.

Justice Taney said Congress did not have the constitutional power
to pass such a law. He said when new territory was won, it belonged
to all citizens. He said Congress had the right to govern such
territory until it became a state. But he said Congress did not have
power to close new territory to any American citizen. He said the
citizen from Georgia had as much right to settle in this territory
with his slaves as a citizen of Maine with his horse.

Taney said there was no word in the Constitution that gave
Congress greater power over slave property than over any other kind
of property. The only such power Congress held was the power to
guard and protect the rights of the property owner.

To close territory to slaves, Taney said, violated the
constitutional rights of slaveholding citizens. Therefore, the
Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. Congress did not have
power to act on slavery in the territories.

The Supreme Court's decision was cheered by the south. But in the
north, it raised a great fury.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

You have been listening to the Special English program, THE
MAKING OF A NATION. Your narrators were Stan Busby and Jack Moyles.
Our program was written by Frank Beardsley. THE MAKING OF A NATION
can be heard Thursdays.